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Lunch Ideas for Diabetic Children

Being a mom is never easy, but packing lunches for your kids is especially hard. And if your kids have diabetes, things get even more difficult. Kids can be picky in best of circumstances, and most of them don’t have the mental abilities yet to understand their medical condition.

But there’s plenty of nutritious food that even kids will love. Not everything is loaded with sugar. And on the other hand, not all foods marketed as healthy will be appropriate for a child with diabetes. Read on for some basic advice on what to seek and what to avoid when putting together your kids’ lunches.

Add Cheese and Fresh Fruit for Lunch

Fresh fruit is a great way to get your children eating nutrient packed foods. Fruits are full of vitamins and minerals, and for most parents, fruit is an easy thing to pack for kids. But if your kids have diabetes, fruit has a catch: it’s often loaded with sugars. Grapes, apples, bananas, and other fruits may lead to blood sugar spikes.

One way to counteract this sugar blast is to add some cheese to your kids’ fruits. Cheese is filled with protein, which makes diabetic bodies process carbohydrates more efficiently. Luckily, high protein cheeses are easy to find, and kids love them. Try adding a few cubes of cheese to a small tupperware of grapes to keep your kids happy and healthy.

Avoid a High Sugar Lunch

Not all supposedly healthy food is going to be good for your kids, especially if those kids are diabetic. Yogurts, especially, can pack some seriously absurd degrees of sugar. A little container of yogurt, if you’re not careful, can be as sugary as a can of soda.

Yogurt does have plenty of health benefits. If you look at labels, you won’t have too much trouble finding a yogurt that doesn’t overload your kids’ blood with glucose.

Go Nuts!

Another way to add protein to yours kids’ diet—and thus help their bodies process sugars at a safe pace—is to add nuts to their diets. Nuts like almonds and walnuts and loaded with proteins and healthy fats that will give your kids long-lasting and powerful energy. And they’re delicious. Most kids love the crunch and flavor of nuts. Just remember to lay off the salt.

Use Whole Grain Bread for Sandwiches

Kids love sandwiches, and as a mom, you’ve probably already gotten sandwich-making down to a fine art. But did you know that fluffy white bread can be tough on diabetic systems? Processed, white breads are digested quickly and can make blood sugar levels pop up. Stick to whole grain breads, which the body digests more slowly.

Add Some Emergency Sweet Stuff

Diabetes can lead to low blood sugar as well as high. And low blood sugar is scarier. Make sure your child has access to foods that can boost sugars quickly. Send a juice box with them with they leave for school, but remember to tell them to save it for when they need it; a jump in glucose levels is usually not the thing they need.